U.S. Election 2020: “We look really good everywhere in real polls,” Trump said. (File)
Fayetteville:
President Donald Trump began his last day of campaigning for re-election Monday by rejecting polls which showed him heading for a humiliating loss, while Democrat Joe Biden urged Americans to draw a line under the ‘chaos’ of the four last years.
“I’m looking at these fake polls,” Trump, 74, told a crowd in Fayetteville, North Carolina on the eve of election day. “We’re going to win anyway.”
The Republican’s rebuke of pollsters – combined with angry punches at everyone from reporters, social media CEOs, his defeated 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton and Democratic opponents in Congress – reflects the bitter mood as he faces the possibility of being impeached from the White House after a term.
When he wasn’t complaining about his “crooked” opponents, Trump focused on his months-long attempts to portray Biden as “sleepy” and “corrupt,” causing the crowd to chant, “Lock him up!”
And Trump has sought to recapture the spirit of his shock victory four years ago by presenting himself as the rebel against an “arrogant, corrupt and ruthless” establishment.
“You elected a foreigner as president who finally puts America first,” he told the crowd. “Go out and vote, that’s all I’m asking.”
But Biden, who has built his campaign by calling Trump a reckless failure during the coronavirus pandemic, feels victory.
Opinion polls give him modest but steadfast advantages in all the swaying states that tip close elections and even threaten Republican strongholds like Georgia and Texas.
“It’s time for Donald Trump to pack his bags and go home,” Biden, 77, told supporters in Cleveland, Ohio.
“We’re done with the chaos! We’re done with the tweets, the anger, the hate, the failure, the irresponsibility,” Biden said.
Fear of violence, of chaos
Tuesday is officially Election Day, but in reality, it marks the culmination of a long election month.
With a huge expansion of postal voting to guard against the Covid-19 pandemic, it is estimated that more than 95 million people have already voted, underlining the raw passion for what turns into a referendum on the first Republican term that shatters. standards. .
Across central Washington, companies have closed windows pending unrest, and NBC News reported that a new “non-modular” fence was planned around the White House, which has been behind growing layers of fortifications since. a summer of protests against racism.
While the Trump administration has warned of left-wing extremists wreaking havoc, supporters of the president have made their own show of force, driving in caravans of flagged pickup trucks and blocking roads across the country.
The FBI said it was investigating an incident in Texas where Trump supporters in trucks swarmed a Biden campaign bus while it was on a freeway.
Biden was closing his surprisingly low-key campaign with socially distant events in Ohio and Pennsylvania, the fiercest battleground of all.
Pop superstar Lady Gaga was set to join the 77-year-old, while former President Barack Obama lent his own power as a political star by rallying for Biden in Florida and Georgia – a stable Republican state being targeted by Democrats.
Trump, who scoffs at Biden’s modest events as evidence that opinion polls must be wrong, capped his closing wave of 14 rallies in three days with visits to North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan .
The final rally will take place in Grand Rapids – the site where Trump gave the last speech in his victorious 2016 campaign and where he hopes he will cause upheaval once again.
Trump attacks electoral integrity
The president, who for months falsely argued that postal votes will lead to mass fraud, has raised the bar in the past few days by suggesting he will push to disqualify votes that come after Tuesday – a practice that is in fact legal. in several of the key states, provided the ballots are stamped on time.
With Republican attempts to get a court to reject more than 100,000 Texas ballots and other aggressive legal measures, Trump’s hostility to electoral rules has raised fears he will attempt to declare an untimely victory or refuse to accept defeat.
The Axios news site reported on Sunday that Trump had told confidants he would declare victory right away if it looked like he was ahead.
Trump called it a “false report” but repeated his argument that “I don’t think it’s fair that we have to wait long after the election.”
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
